Tag Archives: TJFP Fellows

TJFP is so lucky to get to work with this amazing organizer and force of light! Úmi’s passion and excitement as she reads through this years applications, learning more about the breadth of trans justice work is EVERYTHING. Please welcome to the TJFP grant making team, Úmi Vera!

Úmi is a child of Tepehuan O’dami indigenous immigrant parents. She was born and raised half of her life in southeast L.A and currently resides in
the Pacific Northwest. With 15 years of organizing experience predominantly in policy advocacy in the intersections of migrant and trans/queer grassroots organizing, she joined Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement as the Campaign Director.

She has executive leadership experience and was most recently the End Profiling Legislative Campaign Director at Unite Oregon, a refugee and immigrant rights organization. There she co-created Resilient Connections, a support group and leadership program for trans/queer refugees and migrant new arrivals. Úmi is very passionate about her fellowship role at TJFP and she hopes to continue building with TJFP’s incredible network of trans lead movement building.

Keiva Lei is a Native Hawaiian Transgender Woman. She was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and has called Honolulu, Hawaii home for the last 20 years. She works as the Community Engagement Coordinator at Life Foundation in Honolulu, where she plans and facilitates programs, retreats, events, and groups, designed to empower, educate, support, and cultivate leadership and advocacy amongst the HIV+ community across the state of Hawaii. She has been living with HIV since August of 2014. Keiva works tirelessly across the country focusing on the decriminalization of HIV, eliminating stigma amongst and against the HIV+ community and rejecting the marginalization of human rights for the Trans community, especially Trans Women of Color. She sits on the Positively Trans National Advisory Board and is a 2017 graduate of NMAC’s Building Leader of Color – BLOC Program. At home, along with her partner Kevin, Keiva cares for her 16 year old daughter Maddisen and her 1 year old granddaughter Makayla. She is strongly connected to her Native Hawaiian heritage and is an award winning Hula dancer since the age of three.

Isabel was born in Bogota, Colombia and moved to Miami with their family at the age of 6. They began community organizing against deportations and for immigration reform in 2007 and have since become the Membership and Organizing Director and the Florida Immigrant Coalition. Isabel has a Bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of South Florida and as a graduate student at the City University of New York, they published academic articles detailing the effects of legal status and marginalization on undocumented mothers and on immigrant adolescents in the transition to adulthood. From 2015 through 2016, they were the state coordinator of New York’s Mexican Initiative on Deferred Action. They also serve on the Board of Unite for a Fair Economy.

We are so excited to be able to share space and learn from you Isabel!

NinaChaubal is a queer, South Asian trans woman who is the co-founder and Director of Operations of Trans Lifeline – the first national crisis hotline for transgender people by transgender people. Her work focuses on preventing suicide and building a more resilient trans community. An immigrant from India, Nina also works on issues facing trans immigrants. Prior to her work with Trans Lifeline, Nina was a software engineer on Google’s Search team. As Trans Lifeline’s resident geek she has used her technical and entrepreneurial skills to provide resources, build community and draw attention to issues faced by trans people. In whatever counts as her spare time, she enjoys playing with her dogs, building all kinds of things with her wife Greta, complaining about bad user interfaces and obsessing about dumplings.